Currently there are too many cars on the freeway causing problems such as road congestion and accidents. Furthermore, drivers are not cooperating with the concept of carpooling, and carpooling has failed to reduce traffic on freeways in a measurable way. A large number of people insist on driving their cars to work so they can control when they leave their work and where they go after. This car dependency causes horrendous traffic jams with severe side effects such as traffic deaths, reduced productivity due to fatigue, pollution, wasted fuel on long commutes and while stuck in traffic, financial drain due to the high cost of fuel, inhalation of smog that causes long-term health problems, and wasted money on car wear and tear.
Present-day solutions to these traffic issues are not effective. Firstly, carpool lanes have been added to roads at enormous cost; however, this idea has been unsuccessful in reducing traffic jams. Also, in some areas metro trains are used to carry passengers along major freeways. However, the use of these trains requires people to leave their cars and solely depend on public transportation, which most commuters resist. The result is that metro trains and rail lines are under utilized and therefore not very effective in reducing traffic.
In another currently known solution, Amtrak has a system called Auto Train that carries both passengers and drivers long distances (e.g., 855 miles one-way) on the East Coast between Lorton, Va. and Sanford, Fla. In this system half of the train is designed for passengers and the other half of the train carries the passenger's empty vehicles in racks. However, this solution is exclusively used for long distance travel where the drivers at the end of their trips have their vehicles available to them. In this system the drivers and passengers are kept separated from their vehicles during the trip and reunited afterwards. For short-term trips lasting one, two or three hours this system is ineffective, inefficient and impractical as it would require long delays at each station for loading/unloading passengers and their vehicles separately as at each stop. The way the present system works right now, each box car would be separated from the train and ramps attached and vehicles loaded/unloaded and then joined together with the train
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for improved techniques for reducing traffic on the roadways with a system that is practical for daily commutes where commuters are able to remain with their vehicles.
Unless otherwise indicated illustrations in the figures are not necessarily drawn to scale.